Contents

Life

Aurelius Augustinus was born in 354 in Tagaste to a Christian mother and a Pagan father, raised in Roman north Africa, educated in Carthage, and employed as a professor of rhetoric in Milan by 383. He followed the Manichaean religion in his student days, and was converted to Christianity by the preaching and example of Ambrose of Milan. He was baptized at Easter in 387, and returned to north Africa and created a monastic foundation at Tagaste for himself and a group of friends. In 391 he was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba, in Algeria). He became a famous preacher (more than 350 preserved sermons are believed to be authentic), and was noted for combatting the Manichaean heresy.

In 396 he was made coadjutor bishop of Hippo (assistant with the right of succession on the death of the current bishop), and remained as bishop in Hippo until his death in 430. He left his monastery, but continued to lead a monastic life in the episcopal residence. He left a Rule (Regula in Latin) for his monastery that has led him to be designated the "patron saint of Regular Clergy," that is, parish clergy who live by a monastic rule.

Augustine died on August 28, 430, during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals. He is said to have encouraged its citizens to resist the attacks, primarily on the grounds that the Vandals adhered to heretical Arian Christianity.

Influence as a theologian and thinker

Augustine remains a central figure, both within Christianity and in the history of Western thought. Himself much influenced by Platonism and neo-Platonism, particularly by Plotinus, Augustine was important to the "baptism" of Greek thought and its entrance into the Western Christian (and subsequently the European) intellectual tradition. Also important was his early and influential writing on the human will, a central topic in ethics, and one which became a focus for later philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, but also to the Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin.

Augustine's writings helped formulate the theory of just war. He also advocated the use of force against the Donatists, asking "Why . . . should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?" (The Correction of the Donatists, 22-24)

In the acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (not yet translated into English), he is called the "most excellent and blessed Augustine" and is referred to as "the most wise teacher." In the Conmenian Council of Constantinople in 1166 he is referred to as " Ο ΑΓΙΟΣ ΑΥΓΟΥΣΤΙΝΟΣ" - "Saint Augustine."

Despite these acclamations, most of his works were not translated into Greek until the 13th century (?) and some Orthodox Christians identify errors in his theology—especially those in his Triadology which gave rise to the Filioque addition to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed—and regard him as being one of the major factors in the Great Schism between the Church in the East and in the West. Thus, there are those among the Orthodox who regard Augustine as a heretic, although there has never been any conciliar condemnation of either him or his writings.

More moderate views regard Augustine as either simply one theological writer among many in the early Church (but not a saint), or even perhaps with the title "Blessed" before his name. It should be noted, however, that the Orthodox Church has not traditionally ranked saints in terms of "blessed" or "saint" (i.e., suggesting that the latter has a greater degree of holiness than the former). Saint "rankings" are usually only differences in kind (e.g., monastics, married, bishops, martyrs, etc.), not in degree. The practice of ranking by degree is much more characteristic of the Roman Catholic tradition.

There is at least one book explicitly dealing with the issue of Augustine's place in Orthodoxy, The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church by Fr. Seraphim Rose (ISBN 0938635123), which is generally favorable toward Augustine, citing his importance as a saint in terms of his confessional and devotional writings rather than in his theology. Its cover includes a traditional Greek icon of Augustine, where he is labelled as Ο ΑΓΙΟΣ ΑΥΓΟΥΣΤΙΝΟΣ—"Saint Augustine."

Quotes

From The City of God

St. Augustine evidently originated the phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin", which he tied in with a privative notion of evil:

For this reason, the man who lives by God's standards and not by man's, must needs be a lover of the good, and it follows that he must hate what is evil. Further, since no one is evil by nature, but anyone who is evil is evil because of a perversion of nature, the man who lives by God's standards has a duty of "perfect hatred" (Psalm 139:22) towards those who are evil; that is to say, he should not hate the person because of the fault, nor should he love the fault because of the person. He should hate the fault, but love the man. And when the fault has been cured there will remain only what he ought to love, nothing that he should hate. (14:6, Penguin ed., transl. Bettenson)

From Confessions

Writings

At the end of his life (426-428?) Augustine revisited his previous works in chronological order and suggested what he would have said differently in a work titled the Retractions, which gives us a remarkable picture of the development of a writer and his final thoughts.